Shields Up

Last night, Steven den Beste did me a big favor by posting a Metafilter link to my pirate stuff over on my other site. I posted this stuff because my work week has been destroyed and I didn't want to leave readers with nothing to look at. It's from the draft I was working on when my publisher canned the pirate book.

To say the Metafilter crowd didn't like the material would be an understatement. Maybe they have a point; it was unfinished work I put up as a stopgap. Maybe it was a mistake to work on an idea supplied by my publisher instead of inspiration. On the other hand, there are a lot of pretentious, stuffy assholes over there. I don't know much about Metafilter other than that.

Anyway, I knew my regular readers would rather see the work than not see it. And I appreciate Steven posting the link, regardless.

Evidently, not all of them hate it, because my mailing list has grown as a result of the link.

My policy for that site was to keep unpolished material off of it, but I was desperate this time. I have to get a boat ready for a long trip today, and I'll be spending at least two precious work days on the water this week. Maybe I'll take the pirate stuff down when regular activity resumes.

Once this trip is done, anyone trying to interrupt me while I work on my upcoming books will be shot in the doorway. This is never going to happen to me again, barring a hideous catastrophe that forces me away from the keyboard.

By the way, I didn't know until today that Steven had been having health problems. I don't know if he wants people talking about it in detail, but apparently things are sufficiently bad to interfere with his work in a big way. So say a prayer for him.